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Potemkin 2

If the Potemkin Village is left unabated the result will be disastrous. The best analogy to describe the village is living in The Matrix. Based upon the way people react to pressing issues of the day, it appears that they like it that way. The truth is more likely that the average person does not understand how aggregated money and power work together to control their lives. Most people have no desire or interest in connecting the dots that run society.

This system is quite old but in many ways it is a Brave New World. Life has become such a drudgery that we are always seeking distractions as a way of coping. Society has not developed anything quite as effective as soma, but there are adequate substitutes. Corporate controlled television, religion, video games, and social media, especially memes, serves as a mild form of soma. The closest approximation we have to soma would be the heroin epidemic ravaging rural and suburban parts of the country.

Keeping the village intact will leave future generations in a hole that is impossible to climb out of. America is quickly devolving into a caste system which is antithetical it our stated values. Class mobility becomes much harder to achieve, thus destroying hope. The only things kids will inherit from their parents is anomie, despair, and insomnia due to stress. From a moral and emotional standpoint society will die.

The good news is that this is a preventable death. The best prescription is knowledge, compassion, and comity. Knowing how the village come to be and understanding our collective needs will help guide us on ways to get out of this situation. For a society to become healthy it is essential that the levers of power are not controlled by rapacious elites. Only then can we leave this village which has become a hell on earth.